Of superstition, the insatiate fires Of persecuting zealots that devour thee; Deeper than that, which heathen poets feign'd Return, ye victims of caprice and spleen, Yet soon, like Perseus on his winged steed, Spring, his deliverer, comes-down, down at once As thro' his stubborn ribs th' all-conqu'ring sun The mountains shout for joy; the laughing hours Hail, bounteous Spring! primæ val season, hail! The first great blessing of the new born world, And cancels Heaven's high edict; Nature feels Not such the tints that Albion's landscape wears, Spring travels homeward with a stranger's haste; Warns him from hence, with ling'ring step and slow, In a fond consort's arms and force him thence. But now, my Muse, to humbler themes descend! 'Tis not for me to paint the various gifts Which freedom, science, art or fav'ring Heav'n ; Of this unquiet, babbling, anxious world Tho' dignified with friendship's specious name, Of wealthy Attalus invite their guest; Flocks, herds, and fields of golden grain, of these The curling smoke from cottages ascend, Skirting the horn-beam row, where violets bud By midnight feast or revel, but in prime NUMBER LVIII. Οὐκ ἔσαμαι πλετειν ἔτ ̓ ἔυχομαι, αλλά Hot sin 'I ask not wealth; let me enjoy THEOGNIS. UPON my arrival at the house I was shewn into a small room in the base.story, which the owner of this fine place usually occupied, and in which he now received me here I had been but a very few minutes before he proposed to shew me the house, and for that purpose conducted me up stairs to the grand apartment, and from thence made the entire tour, without excepting any one of the bed-chambers, offices or even closets in the house: I cannot say my friend Attalus consulted times and seasons in chusing so early a moment after my arrival for parading me about in this manner; some of the apartments were certainly very splendid; a great deal of rich furniture and many fine pictures solicited my notice, but the fatigue of so ill-timed a perambulation disabled me from expressing that degree of admiration, which seemed to be expected on this occasion, and which on any other I should have been forward to bestow: I was sorry for this, because I believe he enjoyed little other pleasure in the possession of his house, besides this of shewing it; but it happened to my host, as it does too frequently to the owners of fine places, that he missed the tribute of flattery by too great eagerness in exacting it. It appeared to me that Attalus was no longer the gay lively man he was formerly; there was a gloom upon his countenance and an inquietude in his manner, which seemed to lay him under a constraint that he could not naturally get rid of: time hung heavy on our hands till the hour of dinner, and it was not without regret I perceived he had arranged his family meals upon the fashionable system of London hours, and at the distance of two hundred miles from the capital had by choice adopted those very habits, which nothing but the general custom of late assemblies and long sittings in parliament can excuse upon the plea of necessity: it was now the midst of summer, which made the absurdity of such a disposition of our time more glaring, for whilst the best hours of the afternoon were devoted to the table, all exercise and enjoyment out of doors were either to be given up, or taken only in the meridian heat of the day. I discovered a further bad consequence of these habits upon society and good fellowship, for such of the neighbouring gentry, who had not copied his example, were deterred from making him any visits, not presuming to disturb him at unsuitable hours, and yet not able, without a total disarrangement of their own comforts, to make their time conform to his. Attalus. himself, I must acknowledge, both saw and confessed the bad system he was upon ; he found himself grown unpopular amongst his country neighbours on this very score, and was piqued by their neglect of him: it was a villainous custom,' he observed, and destructive both of health and pleasure; but all people of fashion dined at five, and what could he do? he must live as other great families lived; if indeed he was a mere private gen |